Praying in the Dark

art by   Jan Richardson

Today is the First Sunday of Advent, and the beginning of the new liturgical year.

Here are some words from Joan Chittister:

Advent is that unchangeable season when the same concepts, the same words rise over and over again, year after year, to challenge our hearts and plague our minds. Advent is the season of waiting. And who hasn’t waited? When we are little children, we wait for gifts from our parents. When we are young adults, we wait for the lover who will take us to the magic world of Everything. The problem is that the presents pale and the magic world sags all too quickly into reality. But then Advent comes, relentlessly and throughout life, with its words of hope and faith—shepherds and magi, crib and star, Emmanuel and glory—and stirs our hearts to pinnacles of possibility one more time. Ruben A. Alvez wrote, “Hope is hearing the melody of the future; faith is dancing to it today.” The real Christmas gift, for which Advent is the process, is learning to hum hope, learning to dance the divine.